


Time

by ourdancingdays



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6045928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourdancingdays/pseuds/ourdancingdays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James always fought like he was running out of time. / James dies. But first, he has to watch the next day in the lives of his three best friends. It's a shame that his dead guides won't stay properly dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been involved in fandom for a long time now, but I have so many backlogged, work in progress fics that it only seems right that I finish a few. As always, massive thank you to my ever-loyal betas, A and A. I hope you enjoy!

James twitches his fingers. They feel fluid, hazy, as though he’s moving them through honey. His arm stretches sluggishly and he has to blink. He lifts his fingers to tap around his eyes, but he isn't wearing his glasses. No wonder everything seems murky. He leans back against the wallpaper he picked out even though Lily hates it and he breathes.

Except, he doesn’t. His breath stops short in his chest, and he feels cold – cold down to the tips of his honeyed fingers – but no smoke comes out of his mouth. He shakes his head and looks down at his feet.

James is standing on four fingers, splayed out across his own floorboards like hair on a pillowcase. He jumps back, cursing, and checks the pulse of the wrist attached to the fingers. There is nothing there.  He notes the faded blue t-shirt, the awkwardly bent neck, the floppy mass of hair, and finally his glasses, broken next to his head.

His head. James is dead.

He falls to his knees, unashamed as he scrambles away from his body. There is a picture just like it, one that Lily keeps in her bedside draw, where he is unmoving and asleep. He just looks like he’s asleep.

“Blimey, they say the Killing Curse doesn't leave a scratch, but you could be a little babe, couldn't you Potter?”

Gideon Prewett is leaning, arms crossed, against the shattered staircase in a slack Hogwarts uniform. Fabian is sitting on one of the blown-apart stairs, absentmindedly stroking James’ own wand. They look whole.

“Gid,” James breathes – or doesn’t, “Fab.”

“Don’t look quite so slack-jawed, Potter, Nargles might crawl in,” Fabian says, not unkindly. He shows him his wand. “Left this behind, you idiot.”

“Right. Right. Why are you here?”

Gideon is smirking, but Fabian just looks sad. He’s always been the quieter of the two, not that anybody really realised, and now he’s staring at James’ body. The two of them trained the marauders, for a little while, before they left for bigger and brighter futures in the Order.

“You always get a ferryman to take you to the Underworld. Or two, in this case. Apparently the gods that be consider us to be a bit of a package deal,” Gideon explains. “This is your perception of death, as it is.”

“Me and Gid, we saw our kitchen at home. It was all nice and warm with Mam shouting the roof down and telling us that if we didn't clean our rooms, we wouldn't be allowed into death.” Fabian smiles briefly. “It was nice. Better than your morbid scene.”

“So, what? This is all in my head? I’m just getting ready for death?”

Gideon peels himself away from the admittedly horrendous wallpaper, shaking his head. “No, you’re here because you have to be. This is the present.”

“I’m a bloody ghost?” James shouts, but his hands look decidedly not-translucent. He’s a bit chilly, but that’s probably because of the gaping hole in the side of his house. Their house. “Where’s Lily?”

Fabian sits up, eyes now focussed on the door as a motorcycle roars in the distance. “You're not a ghost, James. You just have to be here. You have to see what happens before you can move on.”

“I said,” James states, glaring the two of them down, “Where is my wife? Where’s Harry?”

“Wait,” Gideon says.

And that is when the door forces itself open. Sirius falls through looking like something the cat dragged in, as James’ mum would say. His eyes don’t even look at the half-staircase, the hole in the wall leading out to the Muggle church, but they fix on James’ body lying on their bloody welcome mat. Sirius screams.

James has never heard his friend scream. He’s heard echoes, in the dormitories, but they were whimpers, whispers, compared to this. He is screaming and screaming and his hands are shaking.

“Looks like he’s about to give himself a coronary,” Gideon remarks, but he just looks shaken. Fabian is reaching forwards, but of course, Sirius can’t see them.

“Padfoot,” James whispers, and Sirius stops screaming, like turning off a record player mid-spin. He drops down, strokes James’ hair over and over. Moisture ruins the picture of his sleeping body, marring his skin, and it takes him a while to realise that Sirius is crying.

“Prongs,” Sirius sobs, almost in reply, and he leans forward to grasp at the broken glasses, pulling out his wand. “Rep – Rep –“ His hands are shaking too much by the time he finally gets the spell out, and all it does is melt the frames. 

“Get up, Padfoot.” Sirius doesn’t move, hands patting James indelicately as though he can wake him up. “I said, get up! You useless, selfish prick, get up, get up –”

This is when Harry starts crying. Sirius freezes, as do Fabian and Gideon, and James breathes a sigh of relief. It is selfish of him that his first thought is he’s glad he won’t have to see Sirius fall apart in front of him. His second is of Harry Harry Harry.

“Tend to my son, Padfoot. Your godson needs you,” James tells him solemnly, and this time, Sirius obeys, fixing the stairs as he ascends.

The house is in ruins, and Harry is screaming, no less loudly than Sirius. He’s in the nursery, in Hagrid’s arms, but the doorway is blocked.

“Oh god,” Sirius chokes out, but Lily does not reply. She is slumped imperfectly next to Harry’s crib, hair almost arranged as a halo around her head. Her pale lips are still. Harry goes silent as the entire room watches his mother, asleep on the ground as though oblivious to the wreckage around her.

“Wake her up, Sirius,” James says. Instead, Sirius presses a level kiss to her forehead, smoothing her head in a gentle parody of his treatment of James. He doesn’t step over her, but arranges her hands to be clasped over her stomach and somehow, that is so much worse.

“I’m so sorry,” Hagrid sobs to Sirius, clutching Harry in his too-big hand, cocooning him in his giant coat. He hugs Sirius with his other hand, tears clinging to his beard.

“Wake her up,” James repeats. “Why aren’t you waking her up? WAKE HER UP!”

Fabian clasps his shoulder. “I’m sorry. She’s not going to wake up.”

“But she’s not here, is she? If she was dead she’d be with me, she’d be here, not you. All Sirius needs to do is wake her up. Even  - even a strong Stun can be broken if he just wakes her up. God, Lily. Wake up. Wake up, Lily, darling, please.” James is begging now, desperately, but he does not lean down to touch her. He is so scared she’ll be just as cold as he is.

“She’s somewhere else, James. The Black Lake, I’d wager. You’ll see her soon. But you have to watch first.”

Hagrid is rocking Harry back and forth as he cries silently, red blood streaming down from his forehead. Sirius wipes it away, inspecting the deep mark that goes with it. It is in the shape of a lightning bolt.

“Give him to me, Hagrid,” Sirius says softly, holding out his hands. “I’m his godfather.”

“Dumbledore’s orders, Sirius. I’m to take him to Hogwarts. Safest place for the poor lad right now.” Hagrid sniffles, blowing his nose on a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth. “Not sure how I'm supposed to get him all the way to Scotland, though.”

Sirius looks as though he’s struggling, hands still halfway to taking Harry from Hagrid’s arms. And James is urging him on in his head – take him, take him, dear lord, don't let Dumbledore get to him. He’s too young to be a soldier.

“Dumbledore is a crooked tosspot, Pads, and you wouldn't trust him as far as you could throw him. Please, dear god, don't let him take my son,” James begs, he begs, because Dumbledore will do what he thinks is right.

“I always thought you were Dumbledore’s man through and through, Potter,” Gideon says, almost in awe. “How times change.”

“Take my bike.”

James rushes forward, but he falls through Sirius, through Harry, until he is facing the wall. By the time he turns around, Hagrid and Harry are gone and Sirius is lost in a sea of rubble.

“You didn’t deserve this James,” Sirius says quietly, almost to himself, as he sits down cross legged next to Lily – Lily’s body, oh god, his child is an orphan. “There are good people in this world, you know? They’re rare, but – but I’ve seen them exist and they are so unbelievably selfless that you almost can’t look at them for too long. And you and Lily. You’re good people, you hear me? You’re fucking good people and you didn’t deserve this.”

“Neither did you, Pads.”

“This is all my fault – all my fault, oh Merlin, I told you to choose Peter. He’s a fucking rat, James!” Sirius starts laughing then, manic, in the way he used to do when they were sixteen and out of control of themselves. “We should have bloody known.”

There are Muggles outside, now, pacing back and forth as though they know something’s wrong. The magic about the place is fading, James knows. Soon they will be able to see through the hole in the wall to the dead couple inside without a mark on their imperfectly young bodies.

“You need to move, Sirius,” James says, pulling on him fruitlessly. His hair hangs limp in his face and he doesn't move. “You need – you need to find Remus .” And oh god, Remus, Remus, who no one but Lily trusted, always so secretive because he had to be to keep his own sanity. Oh god, Remus, I’m sorry. “ – find Remus and tell him everything. About… Peter. About us. You need to have witnesses, Pads, or they’re going to find a reason to throw you in Azkaban.”

James can’t even think about Peter right now, the boy they all let down.

Sirius stands, slowly, rotating his wand between his fingers as though he’s trying to start a fire. When he turns, he doesn’t look back at Lily, or the empty crib, or the blank space where James, Fabian and Gideon wait.

“Why did you show me this?” James asks the twins, too tired to be angry. A strand of hair has fallen in Lily’s eyes. She always hated that.

“It wasn’t us, mate. We were only watching. This was where you needed to be,” Gideon tells him, trying to be comforting and failing. This was a new form of torture – watching his wife’s body cradled by his grieving best friend, his brother, and watching his son leave into the world as an orphan. And to just stand by. And wait.

 “What happens to him?”

Sirius runs down the stairs and out the door and James does not see him Apparate. There, on his welcome mat, his body lies. James has the most awful vision. Sirius is in the same cramped position in a cell in Azkaban. He is in prison robes with a patchy beard growing beneath the shaking hands. He is not the Sirius that James knows and loves.

Fabian answers him. “Twelve years in Azkaban. He becomes fixated on Peter Pettigrew, but he never catches him. He meets Harry again.” He looks at Gideon, who shakes his head with pursed lips. “That’s the most I can tell you.”

What did any of them do to deserve this?

“Can we leave now? I’ve seen the present, I know what’s been done. Let me go on.”

Fabian and Gideon look at each other, Fabian still holding James’ wand. He hands it back to him, almost reverently. “You’re going to need this, Potter.”

Gideon waves his wand. And James collapses.

* * *

When he comes to, he is being held up by none other than Marlene McKinnon. Her blonde hair is pulled up in a messy bun and she is grinning at him. Last time he saw her, she was missing half her mouth.

“Good to know you’ve still got your delicate sensibilities,” she jokes. She is as full of life as she has always been – short, but quick to pack a punch. James had both admired and feared her in the Order, and rumour had it, she fought for her family with all she had. It took two _Avada Kedavras_ to take her down.

“S’good to see you, Marlene,” says James, cautiously. He now notices a door, one of those generic grey Ministry ones with the incriminating glow of various wards around its edges. “Why are we here this time?”

“I’m afraid you were out a little bit longer.” There is a thump on the other side of the door. “It’s now the 1st of November.”

James takes a deep breath, and nods his head. “I’m still in the real world, then.” Raised voices filter slightly through the grey door and he winces. He never really got used to loud noises, did James, never liked the loud pranks with screaming people – that was always Sirius’ game, not his.

“Ready?”

The room itself is just as grey and cold, with a single table and a single chair bolted to the middle of the floor. The walls are blank. Two Aurors circle the body – man – in the chair.

“I am not working for Voldemort.”

One of the Aurors slaps him, snapping his head back. There is blood dripping down the man’s shirt, both gleaming and sticky with age. His wrists and ankles are tied with shackles to the metal chair, and his clothes look threadbare, almost rotten.

“I did not betray James and Lily Potter.”

There is a growl and an order for more Veritaserum, brought over by a nurse from another grey door. She leaves just as quickly as she appeared. The man is forced to gulp it down – too much, in fact, enough to make his hands shake and his head to lull to the side. Marlene strokes his hair with something akin to tenderness.

James walks around the side of the table, and he closes his eyes at what he sees. The man is Remus, drugged and tortured and heavy with grief.

“Were you a spy?”

“Yes.”

“For Voldemort?”

“For the Order.”

“You’re fucking lying!” the Auror shouts, and he throws himself forward, his hands at Remus’ throat. Remus could push him off, James knows, snap that fierce little jaw in two. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t.

The female Auror – a few years above them in Hogwarts, a Ravenclaw - puts her hand on her colleague’s shoulder, and he draws back. Interesting.

“Are you two fucking?” Remus asks calmly with a tilt to his head. He was always intuitive, and always liked to shock. The first Auror growls again, animalistic and uncaring, and forces himself to stay still. Remus and James know the Ministry, knows its regulations better than their own bodies, and personal relationships are strictly forbidden.

“Of course not,” she retorts, clutching at her own hand, where a wedding band gleams betrayal. _Oh, Remus,_ James thinks. If you were anyone else, they would believe you. If you were anyone else, you wouldn’t be here at all. 

“Why is he here?” James asks Marlene, who is kneeling by Remus’ chair, now, piercings gleaming in the dank hospital light.

Marlene hugs her body tight, arms wrapped around the space that was missing a ribcage and a heart last time she was anywhere near alive. “Sirius Black has plead guilty to fifteen accounts of murder on the night of the 31st October, 1981,” she recites, as if off by heart. “The decision to give him a trial is currently pending. All known associates are being questioned without mercy or discrimination.”

James punches the wall, hard, twice, in quick succession. _Sirius! Oh, Merlin, Sirius, you fucking idiot. You blinded fucking idiot. Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry._

“They have to give him a trial, they have to –”

“What was your relationship with Sirius Black?”

Remus chokes. “He is – is – _was_ –“ The Veritaserum corrects him, and Remus’ dead voice echoes _was, was, was._ The Aurors lean in, eyes hungry, and this is what they have been waiting for. A crack in the subdued, subtle mask that is Remus Lupin. James knows the feeling. Remus shudders and you can feel him warring against his traitorous tongue.

“What _is_ the answer to that?” Marlene asks quietly, looking at Remus, close to biting off his own tongue.

James shrugs, body still thrumming with energy, with anger at the injustice his friends face. Even now. “A whole country full of Death Eaters on the run and they’re here, torturing Remus. Does that answer your question?”

Remus laughs, wild and grating against James’ ears. “I think my wrists are burning.” James looks down at the cuffs around his wrist – shining silver against the grey of the room. James imagines he can smell burning. There is a slight constant hiss of melting skin.

“What happens next?” James turns to look at Marlene, stroking the reddened skin around Remus’ wrists.

“He’ll stay in questioning for three more days until Dumbledore pulls him out. He won’t talk to the Order for another eleven years. He’ll hop from place to place, country to country – there will be drug addictions, malnourishment, more bad moons that he could fit into the ten years you knew him. It won’t be pretty, James.”

They are still questioning Remus, voices taunt as they play with the werewolf like he’s dinner. He is strong.

“I never wanted it to be like this,” James mutters. “What’s the point in showing me? What could I possibly gain?”

Marlene strokes and strokes and strokes, ghost fingers trying to ease the pain. Remus and her had been friends, once, and he was the one who found her and her family. He and Lily had stayed up on the roof of their current apartment all night; Sirius wouldn’t take him back in the morning. The whole night James’ traitorous mind had whispered _spy_.

“Understanding, I suppose? To let you know what you died for.”

“So far I didn’t die for much.”

She smiles, then, softly, and holds out her hand. It’s soft and warm and small in his, even though Marlene herself has never been dainty in her life. In her other hand, she holds her wand. “You’ll see.”

* * *

“Peter, Peter, Peter,” a voice murmurs, over and over. James blinks his eyes open to a woman, straw-blonde hair and a plump smile. Her hand – devoid of wedding ring – is holding a wet cloth to her son’s forehead. Patience Pettigrew has not aged well since James last saw her, at the Hogwarts graduation where she gave him a hug and a pie and made him promise to look after her boy.

“Mum,” Peter whispers back, snivelling and cautious.

Patience sighs. “You’re burning up, poppet. I couldn’t just let you sneak off in the morning.”

“That’s what my mum used to say back when sneaking off in the morning meant trying to visit the girls school down the road,” Benjy Fenwick grins, dusting off his fingers on his trouser leg and sitting down with a thunk on the edge of Peter’s bed.

“Benjy,” James sighs, counting fingers and toes like they’re galleons in the palm of his hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“Well,” Benjy says, running his fingers through his hair, “I’ve had a haircut since we’ve last met.”

Neither of them mentions that the last time James saw Benjy, he only saw bits and pieces and the rest was mixed in ashes in the street. He looks just the same, otherwise, hasn’t aged a day. He maybe looks younger, less lines about his face, less hard set to his jaw.

Patience cries slightly as she dabs at the sweat on Peter’s brow.

“He killed me, you know,” Benjy says conversationally, taking in the scene. “Blasting curse, nasty thing. Got a real talent with those.”

James props his head up on his hand, sitting down on the chair next to Peter’s childhood desk. “All he ever wanted to do was keep his mother safe.”  

Benjy laughs. “That’s point of war, man. Keeping mothers and fathers safe, and when they’re dead, it’s about the kids. I mean, if it was about yourself, you’d do whatever it takes to stay alive, wouldn’t you? Nah, family. The weak point of heroes and Death Eaters alike.”

“Peter isn’t a Death Eater,” James growls, and Benjy raises his eyebrow, gesturing to Patience’s ministrations. On his right hand, a finger is missing. She raises his left sleeve with slow anticipation, and the hint of black is smudged at first. Blurred. It could be ink. Dirt. A curse scar. 

It isn’t. James knows it isn’t.

“Where are your human rights now, son?” Benjy asks.

He snorts. “I’m only two years younger than you, Ben.”

“Yeah.”

James walks past him, sitting on the edge of Peter’s bed. He is pale and sweating, not that he wasn’t always pale but this was sickly. It made the black tattoo on his arm stand out even more. His eyes dart side to side and James wonders when they lost him, exactly. Was it the strain of the war, the promises made and broken by both sides?

Probably not. It was probably one too many jokes from Sirius. One too many quiet full moon mornings without him. One too many –

“Oh Merlin, Peter,” James cries. He can feel his shoulders shaking and Benjy’s shock. Oh, Peter. Oh Peter, how they loved him. How they trusted him.

“He’s a murderer James!” Benjy shouts at him, and he turns slowly, eyes blurring behind his shattered glasses. Benjy looks angry. He looks dead. “He killed you and your wife and countless muggles! He isn’t redeemable. Oh God, you’re such a – such a – _Gryffindor._ You can’t forgive him for this one, James.”

“He’s my friend.”

“He _was_ your friend. Because you’re dead.”

James clenches his hands into fists, nails digging half-moon cuts into his palms. “And soon he will be too! Don’t you understand? Voldemort will get to him eventually. And he’s going to die painfully, without his friends. How could I not pity him?”

“You’re an idiot. This is why you’re dead! You probably faced You Know Who without a wand for God’s sake.”

He looks down. His knuckles are bloody because he tried to take a swing at Voldemort.

“You always fought like you were running out of time.”

“Tell me,” James demands. “The others, they all knew what was going to happen. Sirius, Remus. What happens to Peter? Who gets him in the end?”

Benjy looks at him. His hand is clutched in the Gryffindor scarf that trails from underneath Peter’s childhood pillow. James can’t remember the last time he saw him wear it. He figured that he’d lost it. Instead, it was here, with his mother; with the rest of the Peter they knew.

“ _Tell me.”_

He clears his throat. “He lives as a rat for twelve years. I don’t know how much more you need to know. Neither Lupin or Black reveal his Animagi form.”

 _Don’t call him that,_ James thinks. He fought for sixteen years against that name and then they took it from him anyway, burning him from the Black tapestry as though the spare could ever fulfil the duties of the true heir.

“And after that?” Benjy stays quiet. “There hasn’t to be an after that – surely you know –”

“I can’t tell you.”

James picks up on the technicality. It had always been a talent that drove Professor McGonagall mad; if there was a loophole in the rules somewhere, James would use it and abuse it. And here, Benjy had let his weakness slip. “So you do know, then?” James pressed.

“He dies for your son, James.”

_It’s all about keeping mothers and fathers safe, and when they’re dead, it’s about the kids._

“It’s time, Potter. You’re done here.”

Patience Pettigrew is being pushed backwards by her no-longer infant son as he stands, right hand dripping blood as he clutches his wand. James can all of a sudden see the man who killed thirteen people, can see the man his friend became through so many faults. He is loath to call him Wormtail but the way the snake slithers through the skull on his forearm can’t remind him of anything else.

“No – no, I can’t be – I have questions –”

Benjy grasps him by the shoulders, and he feels so solid, so real, but he remembers gathering the remains of Benjy Fenwick with a dustpan and brush.

“Just be happy that your son is alive, James. He’s alive and he’s all pink and chubby and I promise you, he’s going to live a long life.”

The door slams behind Peter, and Benjy raises his wand. 

* * *

When James wakes up, the grass is soggy beneath his face. He turns his face and rests his cheek against it, remembering how happy Sirius was when he was finally able to grow a beard. He shaved it off the next day because he could. Benjy had mocked him for it but his skin was always baby soft.

“Dorcas was pregnant you know,” a voice says from above him. He can’t bring himself to raise his arms and leave the ground. “It was Benjy’s. They’d only had a check up. She still faced Voldemort face to face, didn’t even try to plead. She took down three Death Eaters and a plant pot.”

Water laps against his shoe and for a moment he wonders if he’s on a particularly grassy beach.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

But no, he recognises the sounds around him, the slow lap, lap of the Great Squid moving beneath the water of the Black Lake. It was Lily’s favourite place to think, because she liked the water and for some reason the squid liked her. It pulled her plants from the bottom of the lake. Once it pulled her a goldfish and once it pulled her a merman.

“I think I preferred the man-eating water lily.”

A soft but strong hand rests itself on his calf. He remembers a particularly nasty injury Remus had once, on his calf, that kept him bedridden for a week. He spent three more days in the Hospital Wing than he needed, sneaking out at night and laying traps for unsuspecting victims.

“Remus was always the nicer one,” the woman comments.

 _Sure,_ James thinks. _Because he was better at not getting caught._

Although, he did walk with a cane for another two moons. They told everyone that the cold weather hurt his hip. They said he was a bit too wild on a night out. They pretended that he fell down seven flights of stairs trying to sneak in Dumbledore’s office.

They told everyone everything but the truth.

“James. It’s time to get up.”

He rolls over, laughing at the miracle that his glasses have remained intact. It is dark at Hogwarts, and he can’t tell what day it is.

“It’s the first of November,” Lily tells him softly. Her hair is duller in the night time, darker; James always loved it when it was hanging loose in the moonlight. “They’re bringing Harry soon.”

“How do you know?” James asks.

Lily taps her head. “The ghosts told me.”  She launches herself forward then, hugging him tightly. There isn’t even a mark on her cardigan but she is shaking, fingers loose and hovering just beyond touching him properly. He gently grasps her upper arms and pulls her back to stare into her eyes. She never thought they were that remarkable.

“They aren’t.”

“How the hell are you doing that?” he demands. Is this the kind of strange ability you gain in death? Seems a little counterproductive seeing as they’re, well, dead.

“You’re speaking out loud, darling.”

“Oh.”

She looks out over the Black Lake, and as if on cue, the squid raises a tentacle in greeting. There is the roar of a motorbike above, and a large form drives it directly into one of the upper east windows. Dumbledore’s office. They are the only lights on in the whole castle and if he squints, he can see the outline of a dressing gown. 

“It’s Hagrid and Harry,” Lily tells him, and it’s not soft now. She is staring transfixed at the window, but her hand is gripping her wand with unparalleled anger. It’s the kind of anger that James recognises in his son’s tantrums and their wedding pictures and his fondest memories.

“Dumbledore,” James sighs. He feels like he is doing that a lot these days.

“Our little boy.”

She doesn’t have to say anymore because they have shared these fears over and over, what would happen if they died and Dumbledore was left to use Harry as his martyr. That’s why Sirius was godfather; no one was less trustful of Dumbledore. Remus was risky. Remus felt he owed Dumbledore his education (he should have blamed the world for denying it in the first place.)

Peter wasn’t around enough. He appeared enough to perform the Fidilius and then they didn’t see him for weeks.

“Lily, oh God, Lily.” He buries his face in her neck. He always expects her to smell of flowers but her perfume is coconut and her shampoo is vanilla and she is soft grass. “He lives Lily. Our little boy, he lives a long life. Benjy promised me. He promised me.”

“Thank Merlin,” she whispers. “Isn’t it funny, don’t you think, how we always switch deities when we’re together?”

“No,” James admits. “I’d say you’ve always been a part of me but when I first woke up after I – after – the first thing I thought of was my glasses.”

Lily doesn’t reply, but joins their hands together. “Are you ready?”

“For what?”

She moves her head to look at something beyond James. Her eyes are wide and wistful and tired, the shadows under them not yet healed by death. He doesn’t even know if he’d recognise her without the gauntness to her frame.

That’s the thing with war. You end up placing so much emphasis on the little things because the little things end up being the bad things. You want to get some fresh air but you can’t because you’ll die. A house is now a safe house is now a crime scene.

“For death, now. It’s time, darling.”

James turns and he can see Fabian and Gideon, still in their Hogwarts uniforms, and Marlene in all her sparkling glory and Benjy.

Benjy moves forward to kneel in front of James. “I know you think you didn’t need to see this. And it doesn’t help. But the time will come when your friends join you up here, they want you to understand. You have to experience it for yourself for you to know what they went through. And what they deserve.” He swallows, hard, and rubs the back of his neck. “All of them.”   
  
Lily holds his hand tight, and pulls him up with considerable strength. She straightens his glasses, crooked on his nose, wet with tears. She kisses the bridge gently and twists her own wand between her fingers.

“For Harry,” she promises. James nods. He grasps his wand tight and he closes his eyes.

This time, he does not wake up.


End file.
